design thinking, compassionate empathy, and hope
I recently returned from keynoting Edu Tech Asia in Singapore, and while I was there I was fortunate to meet with Mr. Aaron Loh and his team. Aaron is the Divisional Director, heading Educational Technology in the Ministry of Education. While I was there I learned about the Design Singapore Council, which was established to support the creative industry as one of their three new sectors for economic growth. The council believes that, “developing the design sector can help to enhance Singapore’s value proposition; as well as contribute to the country’s economic growth and social progress.” Their mission is for Singapore to be both an “an innovation-driven economy and a loveable city through design by 2025.”
As the leader of a school that has been implementing a design lab program for four years, the idea of using design thinking as a driver of economic growth and making a city “loveable” is particularly inspiring. While traveling through Singapore I noticed that the landscape was dotted with signs encouraging people to show empathy and kindness toward one another. Singapore’s goal is to be a first world nation full of first class people with design thinking as their primary tool for accomplishing this goal.
It was particularly interesting to see their focus on compassionate empathy. Demonstrating compassionate empathy means that you understand what a person is going through and attempt to resolve the problem that the person may be facing. Compassionate empathy is different from emotional empathy, because compassionate empathy has a call to action, which can both help solve a problem and prevent a person from becoming overwhelmed by the emotions of some one else.
We have been on a similar journey at d.tech. We want our students to have a creative impact in the world, and have d.tech be a “loveable” school. Our primary tool for this is also design thinking, which made me reflect on what is so different about this way of approaching problems.
The thing that I have noticed the most is that design thinking inspires people more than any other problem solving approach because it gives people hope. Not just hope that you can use design thinking to develop innovative solutions to challenging problems, but also hope that in the process the designer will develop the skills and mindset to display empathy towards other people. Everyone wants to feel understood and connected and design thinking, more than any other problem solving approach, gives people the hope of being understood by and connected to someone else.
It is also inspiring to think that if we use design thinking, we might be able to tie innovation and compassion together in a meaningful way. Technological innovation is going to force us to make some very important policy decisions in the near future. Just last month technology was listed as a global risk alongside climate change and income inequality.
It is very easy to get stuck in the darker aspects of a technology driven future, but I have hope in our ability to develop innovative solutions and compassionate designers. I know that this is possible because I see it demonstrated in our students every day.
